Oprescu, Alpha Bank: We're pressuring developers to sell the apartments

Banks are starting to pressure developers whose projects they financed to drop prices and accept lower profit margins in order to sell the buildings they erected, says Sergiu Oprescu, chief executive of Alpha Bank. "The concept of prices the developers want ceased to exist a long time ago, because all the buildings were financed by the banking system, which is pressuring for a price drop, thus eliminating much of the profit margins companies set out to get for these apartments," Sergiu Oprescu was quoted as saying by Mediafax. At the same time, banks are offering preferential loans to those clients who buy apartments in the projects they financed, thus trying to drive sales, so that developers would not fall on hard times for lack of cash. Oprescu believes the "First Home" governmental programme has had its positive effects, such as the stabilisation of prices, which had been going down on the real estate market before that, and the premises for creating a more active secondary market in the real estate sector. "Still, the programme is not enough because very few of the applications received were directed to new buildings. Very little of the money available through the programme is used to buy real estate developments completed over the last two years, which are those that could really reboot the real estate market."